VegasJen

hey guys. sorry to do this but i'm just going to link to a thread i posted over in c5 general.

take a look and tell me what horror stories you have, and hopefully the happy ending. http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=809127

that should be better. don't know how i keep doing that.

:banghead:


[Modified by clutchdust, 11:16 PM 4/28/2004]

lostpatrolman

Error: You are not authorized to edit this post.

Jughead

You better get outa Dodge quick when that car is ready. Must be some bad voo-doo there. Don't forget to post some pics too.

I don't have any horror stoies though.

Fevre

Eng out you say? Sounds like a good time to sneak a bigger cam in there. :) I would ask to hold back at least 1/2 if not all of the cost of the rims and tires so they don't jack you around.

Mr.Gearhead

Talk about bad luck.... I feel your pain....

I bought my car , a 1970 convertible back in 1999. I paid CA$H... bad idea. About 20 mins after I bought it.... going down the road a hour from my house and it just quits. Would turn over but no spark. I called the knuckle head seller and asked him to get over to where I was.... he offered a flat bed ride home. GREAAAAAAAAT.... The ignition wiring was completely burnt. Upon further inspection, I found the rear brakes were not working..... the damn rear lines were crimped to avoid leaking.... the muncie linkage was hooked up with.... are you ready for this... brad nails... THAT'S RIGHT.. the friggin idiot used small nails that were bent to hold the shifter linkage together. Also, the battery box was ripped out when the half shaft decided to go on vacation... (evidence of this on the rear crossmember) The box was replaced with aluminum and LOTS OF UNDERCOATING. Okay... I should have looked and all these little details before I bought the car... lessoned learned... I decided to save the car and put it back together the correct way.... I am almost ready to put the body back down on my PRISTINE FRAME... (modesty is not my strong point....) I started in Feb 02 and need to update my website...
http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c3/bendera/

We have two options as Corvette owners... fix it or buy another one... and fix it... :shocked:

77CRUZN

I've got a good one for ya...

I was 20 years old and itching to buy my first vette. Being younger and dumber I decided my safest bet would be to buy one from a large corvette only dealer in Michigan. (I'd say the name but it was 8 years ago things may have changed) I grew up working on my dads 77 and the time had come for me to buy my own.

As soon as i hit the lot I fell in love with a Blue 4 speed 77. It had an aftermarket hood and a few mods here and there, but all-in-all it looked like a pretty solid car. The dealer was about 100 miles away from home, so I left my truck there and headed out in my new toy.

I didn't even make it home.....

In the first hours of owning it I found out what a fuseable link was, and what happens to a car when it goes bad. The dashboard lights kept dimming and the windshield wipers stopped working while I was doing 65 on the highway in a nasty storm. I pulled off the road and shut the car off so I could call for help, It took almost 2 hours to get a flatbed there to haul it home.

Then things took a turn for the worst...

I lived right down the street from a corvette dealer. I decided to take it down there and have them give it a once over. About a day later the guy called me and wanted me to come down there right away. When I got there he had my vette up on a lift, and a crowd of people gathered around the rear of the car. what they were looking at still makes me :U

The previous owner (more likley the dealer) had injected spray foam into the rear frame, sanded it down to match the frame, then applied undercoating to hide it. The vette shop owner stuck a screwdriver right into my frame and dragged it at least 8 inches. The entire rear frame of my car was being held together by about a 1 inch wide piece of sheet metal, and foam.

I immediatly called the dealer and got the "you bought it as is" statement.

I spent the next week calling lawyers seeing if I had any options. Most of the lawyers told my I was S.O.L. So I decided to fake it and gave the dealer another call threating to sue them, and involve the police. (the undercoating looked like it had just been put on, it wasn't even dusty.)

That got their attention. To make an already long story somewhat shorter the dealer and I came to a compromise. They ended up taking the car back, but wouldn't refund my money. So I had to pick another car off the lot. The only one comparable in value was another 77. Overall I think I got lucky I've had this one for 8 years now and shes still holding together. my only regret is that its an automatic.

wcsinx

:eek: I remember the very first Corvette I looked at back when I was in the market. It was beautiful red '73 4spd. Everything checked out and then as I was about to start talking $$$ some little voice in my head (probably inserted via this forum back when I was a noob :thumbs: ) said, "Check the frame, jackazz." So I reached around the rear tires, grabbed the kickups, and came back out with a handful of previous frame material. I said, :seeya

VegasJen

I GOT IT!!!!!!!!! well, most of it anyway. the dealership couldn't seem to produce a set of wheels so i ended up taking my spare set of C4 sawblades down there so i had some way to get it home. we had to use a pair of wheel adaptors in the front for some caliper clearance but got it home none-the-less. i posted another attatchment to my earlier thread if your really bored.
i will post pictures as soon as i get some.
let the modding begin!

bmar

I found a 1973 Corvette listed on the internet that was in Corvallis, Oregon. The owner said (i talked to him on the phone several times) it had a recent overhaul of the engine and transmission and was a numbers matching car. I had him email some pictures and it looked to be a nice car. I said i would buy the Vette and drove 600 miles to pick it up.

when he showed the Vette to me I thought he was joking with me and would then show me the Vette in the pictures and we would all have a good laugh, right? nope, this was the Vette. the new overhaul was a rattle can special right over the dirt and grease. he still had paint on his fingers. the holly carb had the butterflys painted shut. the body had been dropped on to the frame half azz and the headlight were jammed underneath. the interior looked like it had been home to a pack of rabid dogs.

the matching numbers-sure they matched several different Vettes from several different years. most everything was a collection of junk parts all tossed into a pile. the door handles were from a 1978 and the gauge panel from god knows what. the steering column was not even a Vette column. he got mad when i told him I wouldn't give him the agreed price and seemed to have the idea that i had said i would buy it and was commited. he then wanted me to make him an offer. so i offered to haul it away for a hundred, but would need the money up front. for some reason this seemed to make him even more mad.

i told him to keep his Vette and also told him were he could store it. i have never before, or since, had someone so misrepresent something as much as he did.


[Modified by bmar, 12:29 AM 5/3/2004]

leeloo67

I don't have a horror story, but I have an angry me story: The vette I have now took me several years to find. Everything I looked at was either junk or already sold. I saw this one '76 on Ebay a few years ago, says its in good shape, auction almost over and $ not very high. I didn't really want a '76, but the $ was really low. The car was 1 1/2 hours away, so I called the guy and arranged to go see it. On the phone I asked, "there's no rust on the car, right?". The guy kept saying, "it's fiberglass, it ain't gonna rust -and I forgot to mention in the auction that the tach doesn't work". So I drive (a total of 3 hours round trip) to go look at a '76 in "good shape" with a broken tach, and what I found was a junked out '76 with a dead battery, no seats, no paint , and so much rust the car would probably fall apart if you moved it. The door hinges had rust crumbs fall off when I opened the door. The car was full of water and pine needles. The guy slapped a different battery in there, and after 5 minutes of cranking, it started. I asked the guy if this is "good shape", what the heck was his defenition of "bad shape"? He said it was a good car for someone to restore. I thanked him for wasting my time. I emailed the high bidder at the end of the auction and never got a reply. There was never any feedback posted either. I surely hope there isn't an Ebay horror story about this car somewhere out there...

Jughead

:hurray: Hope you get your wheels.